Lisk (LSK) Announces Bold Move to Ethereum as Layer-2 Solution

• Lisk has announced that it’s migrating to Ethereum as a Layer-2 network in collaboration with another L2, Optimism, and the Ethereum rollup-as-a-service platform, Gelato Network.
• The move gives the Lisk community immediate EVM, smart contract, and Solidity support, as well as Ethereum’s inherent security and vast developer tooling.

Lisk, a Layer 1 blockchain platform dedicated to hosting decentralized applications (dApps), is migrating to Ethereum as a Layer 2 network in one of the most groundbreaking announcements in recent times.

Lisk made the market-shaking announcement yesterday, revealing that it’s partnering on the venture with Optimism and Gelato Network, an L2 network that uses optimistic rollups to process transactions in batches and a rollup-as-a-service platform, respectively.

Today, we are excited to announce that Lisk will integrate with the Ethereum ecosystem as a Layer 2 (L2) in collaboration with @Optimism & @gelatonetwork!

Focused on solving local problems in Emerging Markets by bringing solutions around real-world assets (RWA), off-chain… pic.twitter.com/a05p5ldwEm

— Lisk (@LiskHQ) December 19, 2023

Founded in 2016, Lisk was an L1 blockchain focused on emerging markets with solutions such as off-chain assets, tokenizing real-world assets, and offering decentralized physical infrastructure networks. While Polkadot has become synonymous with parachains (it now has over 50), it was Lisk that kickstarted the movement with its horizontally scaling sidechains.

In its report, Lisk noted that its research revealed that Ethereum accounts for over 90% of all Layer 1 network transaction fees. This was a clear signal to the leadership that it has to partner with Ethereum in some form. Rather than looking into EVM integration, the team ran with the rogue idea of entirely shifting to an Ethereum L2.

“We promised to make blockchain more accessible to developers, and that will continue,” says the Lisk team. “While our vision doesn’t change, the means in how we execute it must” to take advantage of the economies of scale on Ethereum.

Lisk Migrates to Ethereum — What Next?

In a video announcing the move, founder Max Kordek said that the migration is a realization of the vision that his team pledged in 2016. He revealed that Lisk is partnering with Optimism and will build on its Op Stack to become the “first Layer 1 to commit to Optimism’s Superchain vision.”

Today, we have announced that the underlying technology of the Lisk blockchain will change. From formerly as a L1, built with the Lisk SDK, to now a L2, built with the OP Stack. The developer launch will be in Q2 2024 with the mainnet coming later in the year. We have partnered…

— MAX KORDEK (@maxkordek) December 19, 2023

Despite the migration, the new L2 network will have the same vision: “to democratize blockchain accessibility for developers and end users globally.”

The first benefit of the migration will be immediate access to the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) through Optimism’s OP Stack. This will give Lisk developers access to smart contracts and Solidity support. Kordek believes this is the biggest feature the community has been lacking.

Security is another benefit. As an L2, Lisk now depends on and benefits from Ethereum’s inherent world-class security. Developer tooling will be yet another upgrade—Ethereum has the vastest tooling ecosystems for developers in the space and boasts of the largest developer community, which will now be available to Lisk users.

The migration will avail “all the economic power, users and opportunities coming with [Ethereum].” This includes the integration of the LSK token into the Ethereum DeFi ecosystem, allowing it to be listed on platforms such as Uniswap, which are powered by Ethereum. The LSK token will now be deployed as an Ethereum EERC-20 token, “which comes with much easier exchange and custodian listing.”

Following the announcement, the LSK token shot up slightly from $1.16 to $1.2334. However, it has since dipped back to its pre-announcement levels.